Peccadillo - A Katla Novel (Amsterdam Assassin Series Book 2) (37 page)

“I can be persuasive. And he’s not as refined as I expected. Although he was quite capable of staying in control as I annoyed him.”

She almost felt pity for Chang. “Bram, did you have to?”

“People tend to lose their discretion when they get irritated. Not that he wasn’t an open book to begin with.”

“Just be wary. He might be on the downslide, but he’s still dangerous.”

“And you be careful with Anouk,” he said. “She’s not exactly discreet, so be selective in what you tell her.”

“She’s very sweet, though. Makes me wonder why you two separated.”

Bram paused briefly. “I have no doubt that she’ll tell you why. Like I said, discretion is not her strongest point.”

“Girls tell their girlfriends pretty much everything. We don’t consider that indiscreet. Sharing eases the burden.”

“You share your burdens with your girlfriends? Do you even have girlfriends?”

“Not yet, but Anouk could become one.”

Bram groaned. “Just what I need.”

“You still see her,” Katla said. “The break-up can’t have been that traumatic.”

“Talk to you later.”

The line went dead. Katla smiled and disassembled her phone, put it with her pager on the nightstand.

She was dozing off when she heard a key enter the front door lock. The cats got up and ran to the door. Anouk entered and spoke in soft tones to the cats, then peeked around the bedroom door.
 

Katla sat up in the bed. “What time is it?”

“Eleven-twenty.” Anouk stole a glance at her breasts, then back up at her face. “Would you like some brunch?”

“I’m famished.” Katla leant back in the pillows. “I could eat a horse.”

“Will chocolat croissants suffice?”

-o-

While the percolator burbled on the stove, Anouk arranged the croissants on a plate, her mind elsewhere. She’d woken up several times during the night, revelling in Katla’s warm body against her own, her sleep-heavy arms around her as Anouk snuggled deeper in her embrace, soft sleepy breaths tickling her ear. Kissing her neck as Katla lay sleeping. The smile and the soft moan deep in her throat as Katla curled against her. The overwhelming desire to cover every inch of her skin with soft kisses…

She shook herself from her reverie and took the serving tray into the bedroom. Katla pushed herself up in bed, looking adorable with her hair sticking up in tufts. In a weird way, her blackened eye made her more attractive, maybe because she looked less self-assured.

“Chocolate croissants are my favourite.” Katla took a croissant. “It’s been ages since I had breakfast in bed.”

As she ate, flakes of bread landed on her breasts and a small dab of chocolate smudged the corner of her mouth. Katla finished the croissant in a few bites, but the dab of chocolate remained. Anouk finished her own croissant and leaned over the bed. Katla didn’t move as she moved within kissing distance, just looked at her curiously with her one good eye.

Anouk gently kissed the chocolate from the corner of Katla’s mouth and smiled. “Sorry, that chocolate on your face was just too tantalising.”

“Just because I dream of chasing you naked through the woods, doesn’t mean I’d like to catch you.”

“Sure.” Anouk leant back. “And denial is not just a river in Egypt.”

“I’m not in denial.” Katla folded her arms under her high breasts. “Just because I prefer to look at a female nude over a male nude, doesn’t mean I’m gay.”

“You might not be gay, but you’re definitely bisexual. Like I am.”

“I love Bram.”

“You should, he’s a great guy.” Anouk reached out and picked a croissant flake from her breast and popped it in her mouth. “Just don’t pretend you didn’t want me to kiss the chocolate from your face.”

Katla wiped the other flakes from her breasts. “Just because I didn’t shy away, doesn’t mean I want to—”

Anouk put a finger to her lips and tenderly covered Katla’s swollen eye with soft kisses. “Tell me to stop if you don’t want this.”

“I think we should stop,” Katla murmured. Her hands went up and her warm palms covered Anouk’s breasts through her shirt, but didn’t push her away. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I want you.” Anouk kissed Katla’s cheekbone and moved down to her full soft lips. “From the first moment I saw you.”

The doorbell rang.

Anouk startled, and sat up.

Katla’s arms dropped back on the bed. “I forgot. Bram was on his way to drop off some clothes.”

The bell rang again, then a key entered the lock.

“Thanks very much.” Anouk jumped from the bed. “You couldn’t have mentioned that before?”

Katla sat up. “Before what? Before you tried to seduce me?”

Anouk stepped into the hallway, where Bram was just closing the door behind him. “Bram.”

“Hey Nookie,” he replied. “Katla still in bed?”

He walked up to her and Anouk took his face, kissed his cheeks.

“She looks like hell. The guy really did a number on her.”

“Hel looked different,” Katla spoke from the bedroom. “The right side of her face was an abyss, not a lump of bruises.”

Bram brushed past Anouk and entered the bedroom. “So maybe it’s a good thing I can’t see you?”

As he sat down on the bed, Katla took his hand and brought it up to the undamaged side of her face. Bram leant over and kissed her face, and Katla embraced him. She looked at Anouk over her shoulder and motioned with her hand to close the door.
 

The green-eyed monster squeezed her heart and Anouk was confused. She used to covet Bram, but now she begrudged him for holding Katla in his arms. Most of all, she was angry at herself, for desiring someone who would never be hers. She walked to her kitchen to make tea, but instead Anouk stood at the window and looked at her garden through the raindrops, trickling down the windowpane like the tears she felt gathering behind her eyes.

-o-

Bram had left again, but now Katla was immersed in the folder he’d brought, not even looking up when Anouk brought her tea. Seemed to be sheets with a photo and information in tables, like personnel files. As she walked around the bed to get a better look, Katla closed the folder.

Anouk placed the cup of tea on the nightstand. “Interesting?”

Katla stretched her long legs, her left knee no longer swollen but still discoloured. “Any information that can give me an edge is interesting.”

“So what is it?” Anouk reached for the folder, but Katla put her hand on it. She tilted her head. “What? Can’t I take a look?”

“This information is for my eyes only,” Katla said. “Privacy, you know.”

“So Bram can know, but I can’t?”

“Bram can’t read this.” Katla took her cup of tea and blew in it. “That was probably why my partner selected him as a courier.”

Anouk snatched up the folder and ran from the bedroom to the kitchen.
 

“Not funny,” Katla yelled after her. “Give that back.”

“No, I’m going to read it.” She opened the folder and looked at a mug shot of a Chinese man, with a list of arrests. “Who is this guy?”

“A bad guy.” Katla limped into the kitchen, holding her hand out for the folder. “Give me that folder, Anouk.”

“No kidding.” Anouk riffled through the pages. Four criminal records, most of them two pages listing criminal acts, and one solitary photo without an accompanying file. “Hey, this one has no record.”

She looked up and Katla was staring at her, her left eye filled with such cold fury Anouk flinched involuntarily. Katla snapped her fingers and held out her hand. Anouk handed her the folder and Katla limped back to the bedroom, where she grabbed the weekend bag Bram had just brought over. Anouk watched as Katla put the folder in her bag, took the plastic pharmacy bag with her toiletries and started putting away her make-up and toothbrush.

“Katla?”

Katla turned around, her left eye expressionless. “What?”

“I was joking.”

“I’m not,” Katla said. “I can’t stay with someone who doesn’t respect my privacy.”

She turned back to her bag and put her toiletries inside, pulled out a knitted sweater and pulled it over her head.
 

“Please,” Anouk said. “I’m sorry, okay?”

Katla turned to face her. “No, Anouk, it’s not okay. I can’t be your friend if you don’t respect my privacy.”

“I respect your privacy,” Anouk said. “I just—”

“Just what?” Katla folded her arms. “Just thought I was joking? Teasing you?”

“I didn’t know you’d react like that.”

“Well, now you know.”

Katla turned back to the bag and pulled out a pair of sweat pants. Anouk walked up to her and embraced her from behind, resting her forehead against her shoulder.

“Please, don’t go. I promise I will respect your privacy.”

“I don’t think you can,” Katla said. “I don’t even think you like me. You just like the mystery I represent.”

“No, I really do like you.”

Katla shook her head. “You don’t know me. You’re only interested in me because you can’t figure me out. The enigma fucking your ex.”

“Please,” Anouk murmured. “Please, don’t go.”

“I don’t like to be interrogated,” Katla said. “I don’t interrogate you, do I? Not because I don’t care, but I respect your privacy. I know there are unresolved feelings between you and Bram, I could see it in your eyes when he kissed me this morning, but I don’t ask. Because it’s not my business until someone makes it my business. Until then, it’s a private issue.”

“I had no idea you felt this way. Really, you can ask me anything you want.”

Katla pulled her arms from her body and turned around. The coldness was gone from her gaze, but she looked sad. “It’s the questions that make these conversations intrusive. I won’t ask you why you look so pained whenever I kiss him, but when you come on to me, I feel like a fucking proxy.”

“Didn’t Bram tell you?” Anouk looked up at her face, her vision blurring. “Tell you what happened?”

“We didn’t pry in each other’s past love lives, beyond the usual stuff.”

“The usual?”

“Whether you still care about your ex, and if you hope to get back together again. The first is commendable, the second is a deal breaker.”

Anouk felt a hand squeeze her heart. “So he doesn’t want to get back together? Ever?”

“I’d never be with a man who carried a torch for another woman, Anouk. Did you really think you’d get back together?”

In a way, Anouk had known Bram was lost to her, ever since he hooked up with Katla, but she never really accepted it as fact. But now the truth was irrefutable and she could feel the trembling in her knees creeping up her body. She tried to hold on, to hold back the tears, but the truth came crashing through the illusion and her belly was on fire like she was punched in the gut. Hot tears streamed down her face from her closed eyes. She reached behind her for the bed. Katla gently took her shoulders and sat her down. Anouk crumpled, curling up inside her grief, only dimly aware of the warm arms that held her as she sobbed.

“I’m sorry,” Anouk said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sssshhh,” Katla murmured in her ear. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

And the floodgates opened.

-o-

Anouk sipped her second cup of hot tea, her eyes still red from crying. “I feel like such a dope.”
 

Katla nodded. Her left eye was a bit red too, enough to mimic empathy. “Love makes fools of us all.”

“Lust,” Anouk corrected. “Love is great, but lust trips us up, every time.”

“You said you screwed up,” Katla said. “But with most break-ups, two are at fault.”

“I cheated on him,” Anouk said. “I assumed he wouldn’t find out.”

“Because he was blind?”

“Maybe, but also because the woman I slept with lived in America. She runs a gallery in New York, a very influential one. I sold most of my work through her.” She looked at Katla and shook her head. “Not because I slept with her.”

“I didn’t think that. Your talent is obvious.”

“Talent is not enough, though. I struggled for years until I met her. One exhibition at her gallery and the clients queued up at my door.” Anouk finished her tea and rolled the empty cup between her palms, just like Bram always did when he was lost in thought. “I was in New York, After Party for my second exhibition at her loft, and I ended up in her Jacuzzi. Next thing I know everybody is gone and we’re in her bed and she’s making love to me.”

“You were under the influence,” Katla said. “Not that that would exonerate you, but—”

“I wasn’t high when I returned the next day.” Anouk tilted her head. “I couldn’t stay away from her. She was like you. Absolutely in control. Deliberate, never impulsive.” She sighed. “What I wish I could be, sometimes.”

“Being in control can be tiresome.”

“It’s still preferable to being a tiny boat on a sea of emotions.”

“Maybe it’s your lack of emotional equilibrium that allows you to be so creative,” Katla said. “If that’s the case, it seems a small price to pay.”

Anouk studied her, as if seeing her for the first time. “You make a better friend than I thought you would.”

Katla gave her a lopsided smile. “I’d hug you, but my ribs hurt too much.”

Fog descended over the dark harbour in the early hours just before dawn as the Zodiac puttered into the Vlothaven. Zeph looked apprehensive, but Katla pointed at another ladder set into the concrete quay. Shutting off the engine, the Rastafarian allowed the Zodiac to drift closer to the quay, using a paddle for the last few meters. Stiffly, despite the two Vicodin she’d taken earlier, Katla climbed out of the Zodiac and clung to the ladder as she pushed the dinghy away. She climbed up to the quay and stretched for a moment to warm up her muscles before she moved silently over the cracked concrete and the rails that guided the enormous cranes, their heads now firmly in the milky white blanket of fog.

They wouldn’t see her, but she wouldn’t see them either. There had to be sentries about.

Picking her way carefully, she crossed the quay to the low building. Keeping the dark building just within view, she moved to the side. What she needed was in a small shed at the rear of the building.

A red dot flared up in the fog. Cigarette. Whoever the sentry was, he didn’t have the discipline not to smoke on duty. Or hide the glowing tip in his palm.